Symbion Accepts Buyout Offer

Today, Nashville-based Symbion announced it is accepting a buyout offer from a private equity firm in New York. Crestview Partners has offered to pay 637-million dollars for the surgery center developer. The Symbion buyout is just the latest in a string of similar sales in the health care sector. Investment analyst Arthur Henderson watches the […]

A medical malpractice reform bill moved out of a House subcommittee (today/yesterday), but with a new amendment added to it. The bill now seems likely to pass the Tennessee House in a different form than the state Senate passed it earlier. Democratic Leader Rob Briley of Nashville added a provision he says will cut down […]

Celebrated journalist David Halberstam died last night in a car accident. He was 73 years old. Halberstam studied journalism at Harvard, but he called Nashville his “graduate school.” In the late 1950s, he covered the city’s burgeoning civil rights movement for The Tennessean. His reports chronicled the legendary Nashville sit-ins and the students who lead […]

House Republican leaders called for a dialogue with the Bredesen administration over how to spend what they said is “almost one billion dollars” in available new revenue. Nashville Republican Beth Harwell says one option is trading new cigarette tax revenue for a break on the sales tax on food. She says it’s doable because the […]

The Senate Commerce Committee has approved a bill to smooth out differences between professional dynamite blasters and homeowners. The new bill will update the way blasting vibration is measured. Supporters say it will be the first update in twenty years. The new law will also require that a contractor planning to blast must make a […]

In November, more than a million Tennesseans voted for Constitutional Amendment No. 2. It allows local government to freeze property taxes on a senior citizen’s home, but first the Tennessee legislature must set the limitations for that tax freeze. As WPLN’s Blake Farmer and Joe White report, senior citizens are excited while county officials are worried. – (Pictured at left: Vivian Scruggs on her porch in South Nashville)

Last night, the State Senate passed a bill to require people accused of violent crimes to submit a sample of their DNA to a law enforcement database, to be matched against evidence from other, unsolved crimes. Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey left the podium to present the bill from the floor. He cites a case that […]

The 10-year strategic plan of the Tennessee Valley Authority makes virtually no mention of solar and wind power generation. That was a concern for Jim Snell from East Nashville who attended last night’s public hearing, considering TVA’s recently stated focus on nuclear power as a carbon-free alternative to coal. “You can’t convince me that it’s […]

Tennessee lawmakers will have a chance tomorrow morning to take up the issue of a property tax freeze for the elderly, so far a matter of concern mostly to county tax officials. Two bills which could be vehicles for such a tax freeze are in the Senate State and Local Government Committee tomorrow. Mark Norris, […]

The first television ads in Nashville’s mayoral race begin tomorrow. sound from ad: “Hi, I’m Karl Dean, running for mayor, and I bet you’ve never heard of me before…” While he earned respect among insiders as Metro’s legal director and, before that, public defender, Karl Dean lacks name recognition among voters. For that reason, Vanderbilt […]